Michelle Obama Program Blames Sony PlayStation For Making America’s Children Fat

By majestic on September 7, 2010 in News 9

A great post from disinformation friend and neighbor Nicholas Deleon, over at Crunchgear:

Consuming more calories than you use makes you fat. That’s a fact, Jack. Figuring out where these calories come from, OK, that’s a noble endeavor, but let’s not pretend there’s anything secret going on here. Like, you see this graphic here? It’s the winner of some Michelle Obama-headed design contest to help folks figure out how to best fight childhood obesity. And you’ll see the PlayStation completely demonized, as if Sony itself is somehow responsible for little kids packing on the pounds.

The chart, part of the Let’s Move program (and you’ll want to see the full-res version), highlights a few bad guys, including the use of high fructose corn syrup in soda, the launch of Super Size-sized foods at McDonalds, the increase in screen-watching hours, and, yes, the launch of the Sony PlayStation.

Surely Nintendo and Microsoft are thrilled with the award-winning chart…

[continues at Crunchgear]

Diet, Health, Killer At Large, nutrition, Obesity

http://voxmagi-necessarywords.blogspot.com/ VoxMagi

I’m not sure its even subject to debate…sitting still and eating garbage is a recipe for hugeness and early death. It just is. Its not a science fad…doctors have been saying eat less and exercise for well over a hundred years…but nobody likes that kind of crazy talk.

Its a deceptive title…the program include sedentary play (sitting for games) among the many causes of childhood obesity…so the title wins the Sensationalism Award of the Day. (S.A.D.)
- Word Eater
  
  It isn’t “eat less” as much as “eat healthily.”
Anonymous

I blame the parents who let their kids sit on the Playstation all day instead of engaging with their children and helping them find a physical activity they enjoy.

Taking responsibility is hard though so let’s just say it’s all the inanimate object’s fault.
- http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/VHXCHXYRKB6IKLTKBFJJPDY53E Russ
  
  Yeah, everyone is responsible for their own actions.
  
  And stuff is not morally neutral (for lack of a better way to put it). Some stuff is dangerous. Think of how long humanity has had experience with alcohol and many of us still use it in a way that not only destroys our own lives, but scars our families for generations. Maybe HFCS and video games are dangerous to the human animal too.
- Gemmarama
  
  my mother used to just chuck us out into the garden in the morning and not let us in ’til dinner time. i read somewhere recently that like a THIRD of today’s kids have never even climbed a tree. that’s a tragedy. if kids don’t have the opportunity to play in nature and develop their imagination, what kind of adults are they going to grow into?
http://twitter.com/stopcp stopcp

“Correlation does not imply causation.”
- Haystack
  
  It does, actually.
justagirl

i blame crime, overpopulation and deforestation. i thank video game consoles, classic cartoons and my 14 foot trampoline.
5by5

As with everything, it’s not as simple as a single cause. Another factor beyond the sedentary nature of play among kids thanks to both video games and teevee, is the fact that in 1972, high fructose corn syrup was invented.

This new food additive turned off the receptors in the brain that say, “you’re full now”, as well as making everything nice and sweet. Two things the food industry LOVED, LOVED, LOVED, and so they began putting it into frickin’ everything. You can actually track the penetration of high fructose corn syrup into the market on a graph, and put it next to the rise in obesity among Americans, and the two curves match nearly exactly.

So we’re both more sedentary, and consuming a food additive that turns off the switch that says, “Stop eating now, you douche, or you’re going to end up weighing 500 lbs.!”

And that’s just the result of ONE additive. The chemical consequences of most of the things we put into our bodies are really only vaguely understood, and poorly tested before implementation.